It was a busy day for Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek, who traded both Mason McTavish and Olen Zellweger and acquired two 2026 first-round picks after entering the day with zero. Following Day 1 of the draft, he spoke with local via video conference call. Below is a full transcript, which has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

In trading McTavish, you freed up $7 million more cap-wise, in addition to the cap space that you already have. How much of that will help you get Carlsson, Gauthier and Mintyukov re-signed, and how much of that will go toward addressing the rest of the roster and possibly upgrading it through trades or free agency?

Yeah, it certainly gives us a lot of flexibility in regards to Leo and Cutter. It certainly allows us to kind of be more open-minded. But, at the same time, we want to keep pushing ahead and address some spots where we can make improvements in our roster. So, I guess it boiled down to opportunity for the players that we wanted to draft, as well as allowing us to have flexibility. So, I think (Nikita) Klepov, he might have a chance to fast-track to the NHL, so that was kind of another scenario that went into the decision.

I'm sure you will love to talk about your draft picks that you have, but how active do you see yourself being over the next few days or weeks?

Well, I mean, free agency's coming up, so certainly we're going to be very active in trying to fill our holes through free agency or possibly through trade. So, there's going to be multiple scenarios that we’re going to be exploring and looking at. So I see us being very active in trying to make our roster as strong as it can be.

You had McTavish locked up for several more years. How much did you consider just keeping him if you didn't get the deal that you wanted, and see about getting him back on track?

Listen, it wasn't an easy decision. I lingered over it for a couple weeks because there were a lot of discussions and that sort of thing. And so it became kind of clear as we got into the draft a little bit. And when Klepov was there (at 15th overall), that really helped us make the decision. So I think that was a primary drive behind it, and then at the same time, allowing us to have flexibility.

Klepov, (Marcus) Nordmark, two players that you targeted, and I imagine, you really had a lot of time for, in targeting these guys and specifically trading for them.

Yeah, absolutely. Having no picks in the first round and all of a sudden being able to go to two and then analyzing the free agency market, that's kind of what––like I said before, we're excited to get these two players. We're excited to be able to add them to the group in the near future. And then at the same time, allowing us more flexibility to kind of bolster our team for the upcoming season to kind of keep pushing this football down the field, so to speak.

How much of a turning factor was Klepov being available in making this deal?

If he wasn't there, we wouldn't have made the deal. So that was kind of the decision in our minds. It’s a big part of why we did this.

And you talked about addressing needs and holes and free agency, as well as the trade market. What would you identify as your needs right now? You didn't have a lot of right-shot forwards before, and now you're down Troy (Terry). A lot of departures on defense, out of the 10 guys you used last year. One's gone, three are up in the air.

There’s still a couple things that are still kind of on the table, so we'll kind of address that here after (Day 2 of the draft) is over. If you look on defense, I'm confident in our defense with the young kids coming in. They need a chance. They have to be able to spread their wings as well, so there's going to be opportunity, a lot of opportunity, for them to get better and to grow and really help this team in pursuit of the playoffs and winning in the playoffs. So a lot of that is driven by letting these young guys play. We’ll explore some other things with our forwards and see exactly what we can do in the free agent market that we feel is going to improve our team overall.

Stian Solberg and Tristan Luneau. Luneau, we've seen for stretches at the top level. Where do you project their opportunity to be next year?

Stian, we'll see at training camp. He went to the World Championship and did very well again. Tristan Luneau, we see as making our team and adding a lot for us. I think he has the ability to be able to play with speed. He's obviously done some really good things in the American Hockey League with his point production. I think last year was a very good year for him to kind of really round out his game in the defensive zone and just play a little calmer, quieter game overall and pick his spots of when to jump up into the rush. So I think there were things that he learned a lot. When I look back on last year, he scored a huge goal for us in Nashville (at the end of the season). And so we think he deserves an opportunity, and we're going to let him run with it.

With McTavish, just 10 months ago, you signed him to a big deal, and he was kind of determined as a cornerstone for what the team was going to be going forward. What kind of led, over the course of that year, to deciding to part ways with a guy for picks?

We have to keep looking for ways to improve the team. And I think that, sometimes, it looks like we're taking a step back. But there's other ways to address needs in our organization for the future. 
And it might not seem like it's in the now, but these things change rather quickly. Especially with (Anton) Wahlberg, we feel he's going to be close to ready to play next season. So we’ve got time with him to kind of give him some games and that sort of thing. 
But in the following year, we see him as being on the NHL team. So there's certain things that we’re making moves that are actually to help us moving forward as well.

With the strides the team took last year and the want to continue to build off that and kind of play in the now, how much effort was there to move, whether it was McTavish or Zellweger, for roster players, guys that were going to be on the team right now, impact right now, versus what you ended up with with the picks and everything else?

I think both players, you can kind of look at––and we did, we explored adding different players to our team. And as it turned out, we made the decision to kind of go with draft picks to kind of solidify some spots. I think, looking at the free agent world or through the trade market, I think there's going to be chances for us to make those moves that we need to make to deepen the NHL team.

How deep do you see this free agent class right now? How much of it is a trade market versus a free agent market?

Well, I would say the free agency market is probably not as strong as it's been in the past years, but there are certain players that we have our eye on to try and target. Through trades, it's funny. After you get through the draft, you get through a little bit of free agency, teams start looking at their rosters again. And there'll be lots more discussions as the offseason unfolds. So there'll be some opportunities that we'll keep looking at, and we'll keep discussing over the next couple weeks.

You mentioned that if Klepov wasn't on the board, you wouldn't have made the deal. What was it about him that you liked and that made you identify him as your guy?

I think our scouts were super excited, but I was (also) super excited to get to him just because I think he provides what I call a 50-50 player in a sense. He's equal part goalscorer, equal part playmaker. He does have creativity, has really good hockey sense and with an 18-year-old, they need to get stronger. And I believe over the next year or so, if we get him stronger, he's going to be in a place that's going to be really good to play in the NHL. We just like his compete level. We like the drive that he has to score goals. And right now, it's just a matter of getting him stronger because there's a lot of really top-notch athletic ability with this player as well.

And then with Nordmark, you moved up one spot from 29th overall to 28th overall. What goes into that decision? Were you worried Vegas was going to take him, or was it just another one of ‘This is our guy’?

That's the deal. When you start looking at your board and you start looking at your list, you don't want to take a chance. I didn't feel like we had the chance to do it (at 29th overall versus 28th overall), and I don't like taking chances to hope that that player is going to be there. We like the player a lot, and we want to be aggressive to make sure that we got that player.

Anything on Anton Wahlberg?

Yeah, we kind of see him as a second line potential. He's a big guy who skates well. He gets to the net. He's a really hard worker. Something that we kind of really target with our players. And so adding that size to the left side and someone that's kind of closer to playing was important in this trade. Zellweger, he's a really solid NHL player, but we were kind of looking at the future of our left side, and Walberg fit that piece to kind of fill in our organization on our left side.

With McTavish out of the picture, is the expectation, moving forward, that it would be Leo Carlsson and Mikael Granlund as the 1C and 2C?

Well, as you see it now, we have options. Cutter (Gauthier has) played center before. Roger McQueen, we're going to see what he looks like when he gets to camp. So we have options. We’re just trying to see where these players are going to shake out when training camp arrives.

In moving Zellweger, he and Pavel Mintyukov had kind of been competing for playing time a little bit over the last couple of seasons. Was it a matter of maybe just choosing one over the other?

Well, I don't know if it's choosing one over the other. We had some interest with Zellweger and just trying to find the right fit as far as what we were looking to do with our organization and our future roster. And I think with Zelly as well, it allowed Mintyukov, it's going to allow Solberg, it's going to allow (Tyson) Hinds to kind of just… it just opens things up to where we can build other spots with players. You can look at it the same way as when I moved Jamie Drysdale to get Cutter. So, just to kind of rearrange pieces in our roster to close other holes that we feel that we have.

And how's the progress going with extension talks for Carlsson and Gauthier?

Well, they're ongoing. We're talking, and we'll see where it goes.

We saw Rick Curran's comments on (John) Carlson (that he won't be returning to Anaheim), but I'm wondering, any prognosis for your other veteran right-handed defensemen in (Jacob) Trouba and (Radko) Gudas?

Well, the door is still open, so we're sorting through that. We’ve got like three, four days before they hit the market. So we're kind of working through that right now, and we'll see where it goes.